Wednesday, June 25, 2014

And he died at age 17, outside Ofer Prison near Beitunia in May, protesting imprisonment of Palestinians. Video released by Defense for Children International shows that he and another boy, Muhammad Abu Thahr, 16, were both shot without provocation. A third boy, 15-year-old Mohammed Azza, was seriously wounded by gunfire from Israeli soldiers.

While we in the US have heard much about the three Israeli teens kidnapped near Hebron, little has been reported about the deaths and injuries of these three Palestinian boys in May. Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz published an opinion piece by the director of B'Tselem, the Israeli Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. Hagai El-Ad writes about one of the Palestinian boys, Nadim Nuwara.

He was a premature baby when his mother was in the seventh month of pregnancy. When he was finally released from the hospital he still suffered from jaundice. In second grade, a passing car hit him after he played at the neighbors’ house. He was thrown in the air by the force of the blow from the car, and after two days in the hospital he was released. He loved to play on his Playstation and learned how to type quickly, and sometimes even typed in the dark. At 16 he began to feel grown up and rebel against his mother’s wishes. He loved her very much.

A month ago, when his father heard he was in the hospital, his legs collapsed. On the way to the hospital he said time after time: “O God, have mercy on us.”

I have hope that these days, when so many people’s hearts are filled with worry, love and identification with the fate of the three youths they never knew, in these days when our hearts go out to the suffering families, that these days will be a time of aspiration and not of hatred. A time of hope for the fate of the families and the young men we never knew; for families, some of whose loved ones no longer even have a tiny bit of hope.

The premature baby who was born to a Palestinian family in Ramallah, who knew how to type in the dark, who was shy and innocent, who would kiss his parents every time he returned home, who God did not have mercy on his parents, was Nadim Nuwara of blessed memory. He was 17 years old when a member of the Israeli security forces shot him at the Nakba Day demonstration in Beitunia. An hour later another youth was shot, Mohammad Salameh, at the very same place.

No Facebook campaign will return the youths Nadim and Mohammad to their parents, the Palestinians do not have an army to conduct house to house searches, and according to the Oslo Accords they don’t even have investigative authority.

These days Jews in Israel and in the territories are very attentive, in the great spirit of mutual responsibility, to the horrible suffering of three families hanging between despair and hope, and if only that hope could win. But what responsibility is this, what hope is this, and what humanity is this if it is so completely blind to the Palestinian suffering?

A great majority of the time, for most of the Jews here, the Palestinian suffering is completely denied. When it is not documented on video it interests almost no one, and when it is documented it is repressed as a conspiracy. What significance is there to the display of mutual responsibility of these days if when they see the Palestinian baby who survived a premature birth and a car accident, but did not survive a live bullet fired at his upper body, in light of the documentation of his death we do not become angry and give our hearts out to him and his family; and instead we ask with estranged cynicism and in arrogant contempt: “Why don’t they show us what happened earlier?”

What happened before is that Nadim Nawara was born a premature baby, and survived a premature birth and an automobile accident, but did not survive the occupation. What happened before is tens, hundreds and thousands of Palestinians that Israel has killed. It is the theft of property and the stealing of land. It is roadblocks and control and permits and searches and orders, and an entire mechanism that under the cover of the big lie of temporariness built an entire system in which the members of one people have determined for almost 50 years the fate of another people: They arrest them, steal from them, question them, judge them and sometimes kill them.

His name was Nadim Nawara and he grew up and had his own political opinion and went out to demonstrate and died in Beitunia in the Nakba Day protest on May 15, 2014. He survived a premature birth and a car accident, but did not survive the occupation.

Hagai El-Ad is the executive director of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

Israeli military targets children in order to use them to gather military intelligence. The children are easily intimidated by the interrogation.

Israeli military regularly engages in "mapping"—raiding Palestinian homes at night to gather information on the residents, then returning to arrest children, sometimes as young as nine years old.

Meeting with Nader Abu Amsha (YMCA) and Ayed
(DCI-Defense for Children International)

Every day, Palestinian children's lives are in danger and Israeli soldiers are ordered not to intervene. Watch this Australian news report on the arrest and detention of children in the West Bank and the Israelis who are working to end this horrendous practice.

One of the Palestinians featured, Basem Tamimi, a community leader in Nabi Saleh, is one of the non-violent activists we met in November. We also met with Nader Abu Amsha, from the YMCA Rehabilitation Project in Beit Sahour, which works to support Palestinian boys who have been arrested and detained. Watch the report, Stone Cold Justice.

Stories from Israel and Palestine...

from peacemakers on the ground, who are working to end the injustice of Israel’s occupation and bring peace to their land. Stories to help Americans, who, like me, have not understood what is really happening—in the words of one Jewish grandmother I met, "for my children and grandchildren."

A Lenten Geography, Meditations for Lent, 2014

As we prepare for Holy Week and Easter, join me in listening to the texts for the Sundays in Lent through the stories of the "living stones"—the Christians, Jews and Muslims living in the ancient land of Palestine who are working to bring the good news of peace to that land today. The lessons are from the Revised Common Lectionary.

About Me

When I first traveled to Israel and Palestine in June, 2005, with Pastor Paul Rowold, I met Israelis and Palestinians and heard their stories about how difficult their lives have become under Israel's occupation and I witnessed all the ways they are bringing hope to their communities.
When I asked what I could to, they told me "Tell our stories." They were convinced that if the American people knew what was happening to them, their lives would be different.
I returned to visit with Israeli and Palestinian peace groups in June, 2008, and I have been the co-leader for two pilgrimage groups to the Holy Land in 2008 and 2009. In May-June 2010, I traveled with a Compassionate Listening delegation. Again, the Palestinians and the Jewish Israelis I met asked me to tell their stories of despair and hope—and about their work to build their communities and create a future of hope for their children. I have made two more trips—in 2011 and again this past fall,2013, with Interfaith Peace-builders. In the picture above, I'm protesting the occupation of Palestine by standing with the Women in Black at one of Jerusalem's busiest intersections in June, 2008.